A visually stunning and highly polished fanmade reinterpretation of Perfect Cherry Blossom with an impressive amount of fresh new patterns to boot. The music is pretty great too, even if not quite on the same level as the original. The soundtrack consists of both Touhou remixes and original works and has a very different vibe to it, lacking the dizzying energy of ZUN's compositions and replacing his signature trumpet sound with a more string-based approach and traditional Japanese instrumentation, in line with the game's main setting. The difficulty level is a bit more relaxed compared to the original, but I can't complain since Lunatic is probably still out of my reach. Also, rejoice if you love the sound of grazing as much as I do, because the hitboxes for grazing here are enormous. (Though needless to say, this inevitably lowers the skill ceiling for scoring.) My only serious complaint is the pacing: clocking in at 40 minutes, this is a good 5-10 minutes longer than PCB, which I don't think is entirely justified and can make starting a new run a somewhat uncomfortably large commitment. Regardless, this is worth buying at full price for the visuals and atmosphere alone. It feels like visiting the most enchanting and mythical Japanese cherry blossom fireworks festival ever!

Reviewed on Jul 16, 2020


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